Date: n.d.

 
Biography:

Sarah Sherrod was born in Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi, in September of 1861. She was the daughter of Charles Fox and Susan Billups Sherrod. By 1880, Sherrod was living in Noxubee County, Mississippi, with her family, including siblings Charles (b. ca. 1854), Ella (b. ca. 1863), William (b. ca. 1865), Susan (b. ca. 1867), Antonett (b. ca. 1869), Irene (b. ca. 1873), and Lolita (b. ca. 1875). Her father and elder brother were engaged in farming in Noxubee County. Sherrod was educated at the Columbus Female Institute (now Mississippi University for Women) in Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi. She married Dr. David J. Sheffield sometime after 1880, and the couple resided in Thomasville, Georgia. A widow by 1900, Sheffield returned to Columbus and purchased a home, which she shared with several members of her immediate family. She was living with her brother, Charles F. Sherrod, a Columbus businessman, in 1910. Sheffield was active in various religious and social organizations. She was a member of the First Methodist Church of Columbus and a Sunday-school teacher there. Sheffield was also a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Ladies Reading Circle, and the Mississippi Federation of [Womens] Clubs, and a charter member and historian of the Pioneer Society. She died on July 7, 1935, and was interred in Friendship Cemetery in Columbus.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of an untitled handwritten manuscript of Sarah Sherrod Sheffield of Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi. The subject of the seven-page narrative is the nursing of sick and wounded Confederate soldiers in various Columbus hospitals. Sheffield interviewed several women who served as nurses in these hospitals. According to Sheffield, the women of Columbus organized themselves into committees during the Civil War, and each committee took charge of a particular hospital. Some hospitals were located in a Columbus Female Institute dormitory and at the Gilmer Hotel. The nurses performed such tasks as making bandages, dressings, and clothing for soldiers and preparing meals for them. They also consoled dying soldiers and wrote letters to their families. While Sheffield does not identify individual nurses, she does include the names and home states of doctors who served as post surgeons.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Manuscript. n.d. 1 folder.